Originally posted by: RyanPaulShaffer
Gee Craig, you seem like a real nice, "tolerant" guy there!
You are right. I support your right and your freedom to do those things.
Any extreme bias or insults in any of the bolded points?
None, just the truth that sounds like bias and insult to those who are duped, the same way that Scientologist react when told the truth about their organization.
If Craig is going to try and coax you into becoming more liberal (against your stated beliefs in the OP, BTW)
Hardly. You can't read too well, apparently, but I said those are my views and simply encouraged him to get informed about liberal views, and he can agree or disagree.
then I'd recommend you read up on more conservative sites such as The Heritage Foundation or Townhall.
I'll take you up on that recommendation at the end of this post.
But for your own good, you should steer clear of anything Craig says. He is regularly disregarded and discarded as the biased liberal hack that he is. Check out his complete ownage by the hands of yllus and the hilarity that ensues, for example.
I guess you lied when you implied you are a 'nice guy' who is 'tolerant'. Then again, I notice the word 'Yllus' in your post, and so you are easily dismissed as a liar with that.
I won't bother further with what you have to say here, but on to your sites.
To be fair, I'm not cherry picking, I'll go see what they have up at the moment - I haven't looked yet typing this.
Townhall:
Some headlines are reasonably 'neutral', such as news stories on North Korean nukes.
Other 'info':
"Obama's Health Care Promises Ring Hollow"
"Religious Liberty Stops at the Schoolhouse Door"
"Carol Platt Liebau: Obamacare Will Make America Sick"
Here are a couple of more detailed examples.
"Obama, Mothers and Muslims by Burt Prelutsky"
He brings up Obama: "We elect a new president who, for all we know, doesn?t even meet the few Constitutional qualifications of the office. "
But his real theme is to spout hatred against Muslims. "All of that being said, we are still better than Islamics." Here's how he describes Muslims *speaking of them generally*:
"We do not stone adulterers. We do not kill Christians and Jews, but when, occasionally, one of us does, he doesn?t get to justify it by saying he was just doing God?s work.
We do not blow ourselves up in our insane desire to kill other people who don?t happen to do their praying in mosques. We do not call suicide bombers martyrs..."
He goes on to compare Obama to a criminal rap "hoodlum" (no exploitation of the race card there), with an analogy of Obama supporters to "the mother of a young hoodlum with a rap sheet longer than War and Peace, who tends to say that her angelic offspring merely got involved with a bad crowd". So, if you support Obama, you are as deluded as a mother whose child has a long violent rap sheet.
He then goes on to suggest that Obama really wouldn't mind the entire population of Israel being annihilated in a nuclear blast, but he WOULD mind the Muslim casualties:
"I find that very peculiar because even if Obama isn?t as concerned about Israel as he is about Japan and South Korea, if Iran nukes Israel, it?s not just five million Jews who?d be incinerated. It would also wipe out two million Arabs residing there, with the nuclear fallout killing God only knows how many people in Gaza, Lebanon, Syria, Egypt and Jordan."
Then he goes on to suggest that Iran would have no hesitation to use nuclear weapons and wipe out the region, and everyone knows this except naive Obama:
"Is there anyone, aside from possibly Barack Obama and Hillary Clinton, who really thinks that would make the Iranians hesitate for even a nano-second from carrying out the annihilation of the Jewish nation? "
I'd say his recommendation for that site is very weak. It's mainly useful for showing how bad that side is.
The Heritage Foundation is not as easily debunked in the same manner; it's a leading propaganda organization whose purpose is to turn right-wing money into messages to 'coax', as Ryan says, the average American to accept its policies that favor the very wealthy.
It has more 'neutral sounding' headlines, that take a lot more time to debunk, for example:
"Obama's 2010 Defense Budget: Top Five Worst Choices for National Security "
"Conservative Principles of Health Care Reform: The Road Ahead "
"Nation-States Will Continue to Pose a Strategic Risk to American Security"
Of course, they surprisingly conclude that the people who got us into the current economic crisis are the only ones who can get us out:
"Republicans' Financial Regulatory Reform Plan a Good Start "
These are the sorts of propaganda in which, were they about Vietnam in the 60's, polite discussion about the 'domino theory' would justify the murder of millions unnecessarily.
The site's radicalim is surprisingly evident though in some topics, supporting 'Intelligent Design'.
It also has an upcoming event to a speech by Karl Rove, known for truth telling.
Rather than a thousand pages on the details of its 'white papers', it's easier to understand the simple fact of the organization's history as a paid-for propaganda business.
Since I recommended salon.com, I'll quote something from it on the Heritage Foundation:
A journalism dean credits the Heritage Foundation for being what it's frequently not: Rigorous, evenhanded and scholarly.
By Brendan Nyhan
[First published on Salon.com (Salon Premium subscription required)]
In his latest column, the Washington Post's David Broder extols the virtues of the Heritage Foundation and the Cato Institute, two of the nation's most powerful and influential think tanks, on their 25th anniversaries. He writes that their "usefulness in Washington politics stems from their intellectual honesty and their willingness to question conventional wisdom, even when their friends are in power."
But his paean fails to acknowledge how ideology and public relations concerns can dictate -- and distort -- much of Heritage's work. What about the foundation's methods, which are more than just an intellectually honest questioning of the "conventional wisdom"? As John Judis describes in his book "The Paradox of American Democracy," the foundation is dedicated to producing good conservative P.R., not rigorous scholarship. Founder Edward Fuelner wanted a "quick response capability" and article-length pieces rather than dense scholarship. Some years ago, Burton Pines, a Heritage vice president, said this of the think tank's mission: "We're not here to be some kind of Ph.D. committee giving equal time. Our role is to provide conservative public-policy makers with arguments to bolster our side."
Of course, there is nothing wrong with this in general, and Broder surely understands how Heritage operates. However, it should be pointed out that the many position papers and Op-Eds it pumps out are often less than rigorous (or worse).
Consider the flaws in some recent Heritage work. Last year, the foundation's Center for Data Analysis launched an attack on a report by the Center on Budget and Policy Priorities (CBPP) about income inequality and tax policy. CBPP responded by taking Heritage's charges apart in embarrassing detail. Most notably, Heritage blatantly misstated the source of CBPP's data, which was clearly cited in the original report, in an attempt to cast doubt on it. This was either a massive error or a troubling attempt at misdirection.
The CBPP authors wrote that their study "relies primarily on the latest data available from the Internal Revenue Service on income and income tax trends." Heritage's rejoinder: "Shapiro and Friedman badly misuse data to create a statistical mirage of growing income inequality in America from 1992 to 1998. The Census Bureau warns researchers not to do this because of major survey changes in 1994." However, these changes were made in the Current Population Survey carried out by the Census Bureau, not the IRS data used by CBPP.
Or consider the March 28 Washington Times Op-Ed by Heritage's Daniel Mitchell praising Russia's flat tax, which Jonathan Chait rightfully excoriated in the New Republic Online. (As the McKenna senior fellow in political economy, Mitchell is blessed with the imprimatur of the institution and given assistance in placing Op-Eds, securing radio interviews, etc.) In his piece, he argues that the fact that Russia has seen tax revenues rise "proves the class-warfare artists in Washington completely wrong when they argue that tax revenues would fall and the rich would get a big tax cut if America adopted such a system. The Russian experience confirms -- again -- that tax revenues rise under a flat tax."
Of course, "intellectual honesty" would require Mitchell to at least acknowledge that he's drawing a conclusion with little evidence to support it. Russia's previous tax system was corrupt; President Vladimir Putin instituted a flat tax as part of a reform effort that also included toughened enforcement. As Chait says, "Any system that involved a strong central government rationalizing and enforcing tax laws would be more efficient than the old Russian system." Moreover, the situation in the United States is obviously almost totally different, yet Mitchell pretends as if Russia's experience provides a useful comparison.
Despite this slipshod work, Broder's overwrought praise continues. He calls the think tanks "models of healthy democratic discourse at a time when too much of the policy debate here takes the form of 'Crossfire'-style exchanges of insults."
While Heritage generally doesn't put out highly aggressive jargon, its experts employ public relations tactics that often polarize public debate. Mitchell in particular appears to specialize in highly charged metaphors equating tax policy with civil rights.
In an Op-Ed in the Washington Times this week, Mitchell condemns the Supreme Court's infamous 1857 decision in the Dred Scott case (which ruled that slaves who escaped to free states were still considered the property of their previous owners) and then attempts to connect the case with a proposed change in corporate tax policy, writing that "some U.S. companies soon may be treated in a similar manner" to slaves under Dred Scott due to a bill in Congress that would prevent U.S. corporations from re-chartering in countries with "better tax laws," such as Bermuda. "The politicians who support this are acting as if these companies belong to the government," he writes. Does Broder actually believe that comparing corporations, legal entities chartered by the government, to human beings owned as slaves is somehow superior to "'Crossfire'-style exchanges"?
Last year, in an interview with the New Republic's Anand Giridharadas, Mitchell similarly compared tax evasion with the civil rights movement, saying that he could not condemn a family that "deposits their assets offshore in the face of a confiscatory tax like the death tax, any more than I would condemn Rosa Parks for sitting in the front of that bus."
Obviously, Mitchell feels passionately about these issues, and it is his job to serve a strong advocate for them. But this shouldn't be what passes for intellectual honesty and healthy democratic debate in Washington. Broder should expect more.
Facebook
Twitter